Of the thousands of civil rights cases filed against the NYPD over the last five years (1,376 are pending now), the city has only declined to pay the legal fees for about 5 percent of those, WSJ's Gardiner notes. A city lawyer told Gardiner the city is only required to defend those carrying out their official duties and not breaking any rules. Bologna has said all along that he didn't intend to spray the women standing behind an orange police net, and his lawyer repeated that claim to Gardiner, adding that his action had been taken out of context. But the city's refusal to back him legally, combined with the administrative discipline the NYPD has already handed down, suggest officials think he acted inappropriately. Let's take a look at the videos of Bologna's pepper-spraying, for old time's sake:

First he got famous for spraying these protesters standing behind orange netting:

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